


Hard to be soft, tough to be tender

by heavenisalibrary



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [19]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:43:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first and last time the Doctor tells River she's beautiful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard to be soft, tough to be tender

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: how about the first and last time the doctor tell river she's beautiful?

_first_

He’s had a bit too much of the local drink at River’s bemused urging and all of the colors are brighter, but softer, swirling and shifting together overhead with the lights and buoying him with a rare, undivided sense of happiness focused entirely on the woman dancing in his arms. He beams at her, and he knows it looks ridiculous, but he can’t stop, and it makes her laugh at him — the sound is a balm, and he laughs too, pulling her closer. She smiles up at him through her lashes, and he giggles again.

"River," he says, reaching up to cup her face in his hands, but he keeps swaying to the music. She rests her hands on his waist, as though to keep up the pretense. "River, River Song, Doctor Song, Professor Song —”

"Bit of spoilers there, sweetie," she says, her lips tweaking at the corner in a way that lets him know she’s not terribly bothered about it, and he’d be more upset at himself if he wasn’t feeling so terribly giddy. “Just River Song, now.”

“River Song,” he says, brushing his thumbs over her cheekbones, “such a lovely name.”

"A bit fairy tale," she says.

“No, no, no,” he says, “it’s a name for a superhero.”

"Oh, god, you’re terribly drunk," she says. "I’d apologize, but incidentally it’s terribly funny."

He leans forward to kiss her nose, and she squeezes her eyes shut so that the crinkle a bit in the corners and her nose scrunches up adorably and he feels like at least one of his hearts completely explodes at the sight. The lights grab her from behind, filtering through her loose girls and lighting them up gold and bronze; her eyes are dark in contrast, deep greens and blues and a bit of shadowy gold at the iris framed by long lashes that flutter against her skin as she blushes a bit and looks away from his staring. 

He sweeps his finger down her face to brush his thumb over her lips, and her eyes dart back up to his, a soft smile curving her lips.

"There’s that place on Calderon Beta where you can see all the stars in all the universe, and it’s great and all but — you know, there’s also that sky deck on Vitalia VI where you’re seven hundred stories above ground level in a glass box, and then there’s an entire city in the Avarack system somewhere that’s build precariously on all of these glass stalagmites and every floor is completely transparent and at night they light up with the moon filtering through the strange atmosphere and turn a rainbow of luminescent colors — but there’s also places like Versailles and — and — and — and there’s a house somewhere in middle America that’s been worked on by this little old woman for her whole life so that it looks like it’s made almost entirely of lace — and I’ve a time machine, so you can see things like the Library of Alexandria, which is a considerable, monumental beauty of a different sort and —"

“Doctor,” she interrupts, “do you need to pause for water?”

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “Shut up. I’m trying to —”

"Compare me to a summer’s day?"

He deflates. “I suppose.”

"Then just say it, honey."

“River,” he says, leaning even closer to press a glancing kiss to her lips. “All those things in all those times and place, and I still get caught up in how beautiful you are.”

"Drunk and soppy, how exciting!”

"Do shut up and use your manners, dear."

"Thank you, sweetie."

_last_

The towers sing, and he cries. He knew he was going to — River all but guaranteed it in the Library by telling him before hand, and he wonders if that hadn’t been a bit of intentional cruelty on her part — but he’s surprised at how suddenly it comes on. One minutes, they’re on a hill overlooking the towers, and she’s wrapped around him and he’s pressing soft kisses to her neck and simply breathing her in; the smell of jasmine and ozone and the prison soap she never really gives up, claiming it gets her the most clean after their adventures. The next minute, he’s sagging into her, and his next inhale is a sob, and he abruptly feels like he can’t breathe.

He’s used to losing people. Everyone in his long, long life comes and goes. It hurts, but he’s accustomed, and he expects it, and he expected it most with River. He knew from the moment he met her that she was going to break both of his hearts, and that’s maybe what hurts the most — that she’s so… River that he had to fall for her anyway.

She wraps her arms around him and buries one hand in his hair, making soothing nonsense noises as she runs her hands over him, trying to soothe him. He wonders if she knows — well, he knows she has an inkling, because she’ll all but say so later — and that makes him cry harder, because he knows she won’t let on. He knows after this she’ll take him back into the TARDIS and make him some tea and let him evade her questions and swallow whatever rubbish excuse he comes up with because she’ll know — River always knows — and she’d rather hide her own fear than play into his.

Of course, that’s exactly what happens. They talk a bit, he doesn’t answer her questions, and distracts her with kisses and touches and a slow walk back to their bedroom where he spends an indefinite amount of time committing every inch of her body to memory; he cleans out entire decades just to hold on to the sounds she makes, and loses at least a dozen faces of people from his past just so he can remember hers every time she looks at him. He doesn’t say it enough — the words feel too heavy, they mean too much, and nothing he can ever come up with quite does justice to what he feels for her — but he loves her. And since he can’t bring himself to say it, because he thinks he’d never stop crying if he did, he whispers it into her skin with every kiss, writes it onto her flesh with every touch. Oh, River Song, he thinks, you are loved by so many and so much and by no one more than me. He hopes that if she ever doubts it, that magnificent brain of hers will withhold the sensory memory of the millions of words of love he’s put into his kisses and touches over the years.

Suddenly he’s at the door of her flat, listening to her tell him about the expedition she’s taking to the Library, and he grits his jaw to keep from crying again. He can barely answer anything she’s saying, because the only words that will come out are things like don’t go and here’s how to fix this and the fleeting thought that he ought to make her hate him, right now, so that she doesn’t sacrifice everything she is tomorrow for the good she sees in him.

"Thank you for a lovely evening, sweetie," she says, leaning up to kiss the corner of his mouth. He reaches around her and holds her to him, kissing her just a bit more desperately than he should before he lets her step back.

He stares at her as she grins at him, and he’s struck for the millionth time by how very stunning she is. He’d love River in any regeneration, but this one just suits her — she’s jaw-droppingly stunning, but she looks lived-in and well-traveled, she looks like she inhabits every inch of herself, like she’s so terribly comfortable in her skin — he’s interrupted from his thoughts by her laughter, even as the twinkle in her eyes draws him back under.

"You’re staring," she says. "You have been all night. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?" She reaches up to brush her hand against the side of his face. He leans into her touch.

"Nothing at all, dear," he says, grabbing her hand so he can press a kiss to her palm. He closes her fingers over it and lets it drop back to her where she pulls it into her chest and smiles at him. "You’re incredibly beautiful — I probably don’t say it enough — but it’s a bit distracting, you know."

"Oh, I know,” she says with a wink, and he laughs, feeling his chest unknot just a fraction. He steps back from her before he loses the ability to do it altogether.

"I’ll just bet you do, my bad, bad girl," he says, twirling back to the TARDIS doors. He steps inside when they open, and turns around to face her, giving her a bit of a salute.

"See you soon."

"You will at that," says the Doctor.

"Oh, will I, now? That sounds like a spoiler, husband," she says, and the knot’s back again. He feels a bit sick, but manages to widen his smile.

"Just a small one, wife," he says. "See you around, Professor Song."

He cries again the moment the doors close.


End file.
